Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Finding books that fit your kinks

I think that kinks are probably a lot like fingerprints - no two are exactly alike. Find ten people who like bondage and you'll find ten different bondage preferences. One will want comfortable bondage (that's me, BTW), one will want as much discomfort as possible, one will want to be forced into the bondage, one will want some movement available, another will want as much movement as possible to be restricted. The same goes for people who enjoy being spanked - some prefer thuddy, others prefer sting over thud, some need to have the intensity gradually work up until their endorphins join the party, others want it to hurt right off the bat before their endorphins can dull the pain.

There are literally hundreds of specific kinks under the BDSM umbrella, and with each kink having so many options, is it any wonder sometimes people have such trouble finding a partner with kinks that are complimentary to their own?

With the number of books out there, it should be easier to find books that hit your pleasure spots... but sometimes it isn't so easy.

As a reader, I get annoyed when the blurb gives the impression of power exchange and the book has nothing to do with power exchange. Or when it warns it is intense and it isn't. But, as with hot peppers, one person's intense is another person's mild. Unlike hot peppers, there is no Scoville scale, no measuring stick we can all agree on. If you are already familiar with an author then you likely know what the author's measuring stick looks like. When Annabel Joseph said she'd been wanting to write a book with more intense BDSM, for instance, I grabbed Club Mephisto right away. And she was right, it is intense. It's not for everyone... but it was right up my alley. Not that I would want to live Molly's life, but that Molly's life is great fantasy material, and the things done to her hit all of the right buttons.

How do you choose BDSM books? Do you trust the blurb? Do you stick with authors you know who seem to have similar kinks as your own? Do you wait to see what others have to say about it first?

3 comments:

I choose BDSM books in different ways. Some are review requests, so in a way they are choosing me. For books I buy myself, I listen to a small group of Goodreads friends (including my Forbidden partner) who have a similar kink level to mine.

I prefer plausibly realistic characters most of the time, too. Well, except for Urban Fantasy books, but even then I want them to be real.... plausible if there were such a thing as werewolves or vampires or whatever.

Diana - it's cool that some of the books kind of find you, but I'm guessing that probably means you have to be open to a wider variety of kinks. Which could be cool.